Former tulsan to serve 9 years for $7 million investment fraud scheme

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 13, 2013

TULSA, Okla. — A former Tulsa-based promoter of fraudulent oil and gas investments was sentenced on Thursday to serve nine years in federal prison for perpetrating a $7 million dollar fraud, announced Danny C. Williams Sr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma.

Jimmy E. Morrisett, 53, of Burnet, Texas, once chief executive officer of now-defunct Red Earth Resources, Inc., and Alpine Petroleum, LLC, pleaded guilty to an unlawful monetary transaction with the funds he obtained from the massive four-year investor fraud scheme victimizing 238 investors in Oklahoma and 37 other states and Canada. Morrisett promoted a Ponzi scheme in which investors supposedly received returns from oil and gas properties. Actually, however, most of the returns came from monies provided by investors themselves. Many of the investors were elderly and lost their life savings.

United States District Court Chief Judge Gregory K. Frizzell imposed the maximum sentence allowed under the United States Sentencing Guidelines and ordered Morrisett to pay restitution to the victims in the amount of $6,874,135.44.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigations. Assistant United States Attorneys Kevin C. Leitch and Charles M. McLoughlin prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.